Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. There is a lot to cover and I am conscious of the fact that we are here to discuss our generous infrastructure provision and residential development. That is why we have convened this meeting and why the witnesses have been invited to engage with us so I want to keep the focus on that.

I want to direct my first round of questions to Uisce Éireann. We have read Uisce Éireann's presentations and papers and I thank it for submitting them in advance. There are three key asks when you distil everything the witnesses from Uisce Éireann have said today and what it has said in its submission. In the submission, Uisce Éireann refers to "The prioritisation of key enabling strategic infrastructure that will support economic growth including the delivery of housing" and mentions a triage system, which makes clear sense, so the witnesses might touch on that. The submission goes on to ask:

That Uisce Éireann is given appropriate powers to complete its functions, particularly when it comes to Compulsory Purchase Orders, Taking In Charge (TIC) [which Uisce Éireann will be familiar with], and exempted developments. These powers currently rest with the Local Authorities under the draft Planning and Development Bill, which we believe is incorrect.

We need to tease that out a bit. Uisce Éireann has made those assertions and asks and there is great clarity in the messaging, which is key and we know a lot about what people think. I want to touch on those three key messages that Uisce Éireann has set out in its presentation.

Then I want to ask Uisce Éireann to look at the issue of capacity. I was a councillor for many years in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and I remember many an application being refused by An Bord Pleanála on the basis of no surge capacity, in Poolbeg for instance, and we saw a major surge in Dublin Bay because of capacity. Things moved on and we have had tertiary treatment and different things but we still have a major issue and the lack of surge infrastructure in Dublin Bay is a major issue for An Bord Pleanála. We know that developments have been refused permission, at a time of a housing crisis, and rightly so, because there are environmental and capacity consequences. Does Uisce Éireann have the confidence to tell this committee that it has the capacity to roll out development with the greater Dublin area? Let us just take the greater Dublin area, which is the area I want to focus on. There are key messages about that and I would like to leave here today knowing that Uisce Éireann has the capacity or that it identifies honestly that there is a weakness in the capacity and then tells us what it is going to do about it. That is important and I would like the witnesses to address those issues.

I will park another question for CIF. I am familiar with section 49 levies and I see the development of the B1 and B2 levies out to Cherrywood. I see a range of levies that people are paying and I want to ask why it is all being absorbed by the first-time buyer versus the second-hand buyer in the same district. In some of those cases a first-time buyer could not buy a second-hand house but that is another day's work. CIF rightly calls for something and it talks about the need for mature, frank and honest debate on how we will fund the infrastructure. It is as simple as that. We have the dichotomy and political angst about property tax and at best we have local administration. We do not have local government in this country at all; we only have a basic local administration that is centralised by central government and that does not allow a lot of discretion. That is for the CIF later if we have time but I would like to direct my initial questions to Uisce Éireann.